Kingston High School project manager BBL Construction Services has had rocky history in Mid-Hudson

The region's history with the construction manager of a proposed $92 million overhaul of Kingston High School includes successful projects at Ulster County Community College and in the Germantown school district but cost overruns and questions about ethics at other jobs.

Red flags concerning BBL Construction Services' work in the Mid-Hudson over the last decade include cost overruns for the Greene County municipal building project, the Kingston school district getting a $150,000 bill from the firm to finish overseeing the Excel project when work took longer than agreed upon, the company being drawn into an extortion scandal involving former Dutchess County Republican Elections Commissioner William Paroli Sr. and questions that Ulster County lawmakers raised about campaign contributions made by BBL before the company was named the first construction manager of the county's troubled Law Enforcement Center project.

BBL, to which the Kingston school board in May 2011 reluctantly awarded a $2.4 million contract to manage the high school project, describes itself as an industry leader with three decades of experience as "a design/build general contractor and professional construction services manager."

The Albany-based company's media spokesman did not return several phone messages left by a reporter over the past two weeks, but BBL's website lists 159 completed office, commercial, governmental, student housing, medical and heavy construction projects, with endorsements from clients on the Hilton Garden Inn at Albany Medical Center, the Medicor Medical Office Building in Hillsborough, N.J., and the Patroon Creek Medical Office Building in Albany.

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Also, The Business Review reported earlier this month that BBL had won an award from the Associated General Contractors of New York State for the patient care pavilion and diagnostic and treatment platform at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany.

Locally, a BBL-managed project to add a two-story, 37,000-square-foot addition and new gymnasium to the Germantown Central School building was completed in 2001, and although few school leaders who were with the district then remain there now, Superintendent Patrick Gabriel said that he has not been made aware of any problems with the project during his six years at the helm.

Ulster County Community College President Donald Katt in a recent interview spoke highly of BBL's work on a $16 million project that extended two buildings around UCCC's library plaza, put an addition on the library and redesigned Vanderlyn Hall about a decade ago.

"It lifted the whole appearance of the campus," Katt said.

Gordon Howatt, who was UCCC's dean of administration at the time of the project, told the Freeman in 2000 that cost estimates were roughly $1.5 million shy of bids, which he attributed to unforeseeable market fluctuations, but Katt said the project was finished on time and on budget.

Katt recalled BBL "really went to bat for us" during a dispute with a subcontractor and came out on top, and he said that, based on his experience with the company then, he would be happy to work with the firm again if it was the low bidder for a project.

The region's experiences with a handful of other construction projects managed by BBL has been rocky, however.

In 2000, BBL -- then known as Barry, Bette and Led Duke -- was replaced with Bovis Lend Lease as the construction manager for the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center project when BBL was listed in the U.S. Attorney's Office's indictment of Paroli.

The indictment stated that in 1997, BBL paid $10,000 in extortion money to then-town of Poughkeepsie Water Commissioner Fred Andros to get the permits needed to complete a private contract, the Freeman reported at the time. Federal authorities alleged Andros collected the money on behalf of Paroli, who eventually pleaded guilty to extortion and spent 18 months in federal prison.

Robert Fortune, then the company's vice president of construction management, told Ulster County officials at the time that the incident was the result of poor judgment by two BBL employees who did not have management's approval and that BBL was a victim in the case. BBL was not charged in connection with the probe.

While Ulster County dropped BBL from the jail project, other local leaders stood by the firm. Greene County officials expressed confidence in 2002 that BBL was the right firm to manage construction of what was expected to be a $14.7 million project to build a new county office building.

Greene County officials said at the time they had received a good reference from Coxsackie-Athens school district officials following a renovation of the district's middle school, but by December of that year, the groundbreaking for the new county building was marred by 30 protesters from several trade unions who objected to the use of subcontractor Bast-Hatfield.

Union members said at the time that the subcontractor hired non-union workers, didn't hire local residents and had a spotty record on safety and labor issues.

In the summer of 2004, the Freeman reported Greene County lawmakers were getting an itemized list of expenses for the project after it had run more than $500,000 over its $15.9 million bid price. Officials attributed much of the extra costs to design flaws that required corrections and said the rest were related to unexpected safety and security expenses.

Under Bovis Lend Lease's management, the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center project, originally estimated to cost $53 million, ended up costing taxpayers more than $95 million and missed its projected April 2004 opening by almost three years.

BBL officials were never charged as a result of the investigation into the jail project, but a special committee investigating the planning and construction of the facility did question why Turner Construction, which bid a flat fee of between $1.38 million and $1.56 million, was rejected in favor of BBL, whose $3.11 million bid for construction management was the second highest among five proposals.

Committee members produced minutes of a closed-door meeting indicating BBL was the only construction manager to have made political contributions, according to Freeman archives, though BBL officials said their interaction with the county on the project was nothing but professional.

The firm was hired for the jail project after reducing its fee to $2.49 million, which would have made it the second lowest bid. The Bovis bid was $2.25 million, but Bovis ultimately received $3.5 million prior to being fired before the project was finished.

State campaign finance disclosures show BBL and BBL's political action committee routinely donate to candidates from both major parties, a practice the Albany Times Union has reported causes grumbling among other Capital District contractors.

The Kingston school district's last experience with BBL came during the $21.3 million Excel capital project, which voters approved in March 2007 as part of an effort to upgrade infrastructure in every school in the district.

The project ended up accomplishing less than initially expected when bids came in much higher than estimated. District officials and consultants said that was the result of oil prices surging in the summer of 2008, which forced the Board of Education to prioritize the most important parts of the Excel plan and eliminate other planned work.

Then, when construction took longer than forecast, BBL charged the district an extra $150,000 to retain the company for the last leg of the project.

This time around, the school board initially rejected BBL's proposal to manage the $92 million high school project that district officials and architectural consultants developed because of concerns about the district's experience with the Excel project, the fairness of the bidding process and approving a bid before the district's budget had been approved by voters, which could have been derailed by contingency budget rules had the spending plan not passed.

The board's action came despite a district committee including then-Superintendent Gerard Gretzinger, then-Treasurer Gary Tomczyk, school board member James Shaughnessy and KSQ Architects consultant Armand Quadrini unanimously recommending BBL from among a group of firms that submitted proposals.

Committee members reported BBL gave the best presentation and said the firm complied with a request to submit a revised bid that cut the proposed cost by 10 percent.

Quadrini told the school board last year that he understood his job to be helping the district find the company that would do the best work for the best price, and he asked if the board simply wanted the cheapest proposal. Triton Construction bid $1.97 million, Turner Construction bid $2.5 million and Arris Construction bid nearly $2.8 million.

Shaughnessy has said an advantage that BBL's proposal had over those of its competitors was the firm's estimate of the work being done in three years. That was faster than the others and meant potentially saving district taxpayers millions of dollars in interest payments.

The board ultimately voted in favor of hiring BBL after members felt their concerns about the fairness of the bidding process had been addressed.

The Kingston school district's current superintendent, Paul Padalino, has said he never worked with BBL before coming to Kingston at the beginning of this year, but he did not return messages last week seeking comment about BBL's record.

The school board is expected to renew the conversation about the next steps in the high school project as soon as this week.